Binary
by Ari Vela
Summary: "Sir, I think he might already be gone." Thanks to demonchilde and Neon Kitsune for betaing.


Olivia felt the odd mix of humidity and the Boston chill press hard against her exposed cheeks. The month of March wasn't quite strong enough to shake the remnants of winter until around noon on most days, so she buried her chin into her soft, gray scarf and nestled gloved hands in the lining of her rough, wool pea coat as she hurried from her SUV to the Kresge Building, whose basement was hiding what she liked to think of as Walter's lair. The sky sagged low under the weight of dark clouds, bruises on an inky blue expanse. If the sun had met the horizon yet, Boston's monumental skyline made it a clandestine meeting.

As she fingered the insides of her stiff pockets, a memory of Peter soaked in sarcasm suddenly bloomed from the back of her mind. He had wondered aloud if she ever wore anything besides pantsuits and dark, structured coats. Then, she only answered with a look, and probably an unkind one. He only laughed and said she wore it like "goddamned armor."

_Goddamned armor for goddamned cold mornings,_ she thought.

She pushed the door to Walter's lab, opening the diorama of scientifically verified nightmares to find herself alone, the was the first to arrive, although it was far from the most uncommon thing in the world. The past few weeks, dedicated to a case of women coming up missing and rediscovered with their craniums carved open and their frontal lobes removed in entirety with surgical precision, had brought on a bevy of late nights and a new, caffeinated candor for Astrid (If you want Red Vines, look in your freaking pockets, Walter. I'd bet my life savings you'd find a package's worth in your laundry."). The young agent had taken a well-deserved "personal day," but that's the main reason why Olivia was here so early and why she would probably leave so late. Walter had theories — Walter always had theories — but still she spent the last seven days working an average of 13 hours. The whole week had been a stumbling block, one she was hoping to clear today.

She was hawk-eying interrogation transcripts and everything she could lay her hands on about their suspects for long enough time to forget she was alone when she heard the ancient clang of the lab door and the soft bickering that usually accompanied the Bishop dyad.

"Walter, if you ever say anything aloud about this again, I may be forced to make you watch as I dump your LSD down the toilet," Peter grumbled to his father, and the elder Bishop responded with a whining growl.

"Walter, seriously. I'm beggin' you. Keep it under your hat, alright?" Peter said.

"Keep what under your hat?" Olivia said, calling attention to her presence and causing Walter to jump.

"Agent Dunham! What a lovely surprise!"

"I work here, Walter," she said, unsure whether to be bewildered or amused. "I'm the one who asked you guys to be here early."

Blinking furiously, Walter muttered about tests he needed to perform before ambling off to the other side of the lab. Olivia raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Peter, who (she noted) was much better as concealing his discomfort, whatever the cause.

"Don't worry about it, he's fine," he said with a dismissive hand gesture. "Well, as fine as Walter could ever be, anyway."

She decided to drop the subject, nodding with a small, somewhat indulging smile before asking, "you ready to study?"

He supplied a half-smile, and said, "depends. What're we studying?"

She wasn't sure what triggered it, the deep plunge in her stomach that usually accompanies roller coaster rides with Ella or childhood bicycle free falls down a steep hill. It was sudden and suspiciously coinciding with the way Peter stepped closer and his voice dropped when he spoke to her. She had long been aware of how his hand always managed to find her arm or the small of her back and, like everything that troubled her on a personal level, she had long opted to ignore it.

She turned on her heel before saying over her shoulder: "I think we might have located our guy."

With a dark sky matching dawn, only with a high moon understudying the sun, and after hours of dissecting the case files with Peter, then with Broyles, and afternoon of car chases and a standoff, Olivia was staring at a man across the interrogation table. The man in the mugshots and surveillance tapes, the man she had been tracking for weeks. She listened to him describe how he removed the sections of the missing women's brains, detailing a procedure she was 1,001 percent certain they would connect to Massive Dynamic. Somehow, someway, it always circumnavigates back to this one truth.

But for now, she lacked the energy to aim her ire. She rubbed bleary eyes as she exited, finding Peter on the other side of the glass looking mightily uneasy under the Broyles' gaze. Her superior snapped his eyes from the younger Bishop and they landed on Olivia.

"Good work, Agent Dunham," he said in his usual monotone, "When you're done here, I need to see you in my office."

"OK," she nodded. "Can I ask what it's about?"

"Just know that it's urgent," Broyles said before exiting, the tension in his gate and shoulders causing a dull terror to sprout in her throat. When she turned to Peter, she found his eyes still following Broyles' exit from the room, although he was long gone. Muscles and tendons made slight ripples under his skin as he clenched and unhinged his jaw.

"Hey," she said, shaking him from his reverie and he was quick to put on a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Hey," he responded dryly, still chewing on his unspoken tension

"That's all I got for the day," she said. "Well, as soon as I'm done meeting with Broyles."

"Yeah, I think I'll go ahead and go on home, if that's alright."

"Of course. See you tomorrow?" she asked cautiously, although she couldn't tell herself why. He paused for a moment and surveyed her, his green eyes staring a little too hard.

"Yeah," he said. "See you tomorrow."

Eyes falling quickly, Peter took three stiff steps toward the door when a fearful impulse made Olivia speak again.

"Peter?" she said suddenly, and he stopped as if a switch flicked off. Pausing for a second too long, he turned to her with a passive face, one that made her wonder how well she really knew Peter Bishop.

"Everything OK?"

Another pause. More questions.

"Yeah, Olivia. Everything's fine."

When she pushed open the door to Broyles' office in the heart of the federal plaza, he was looking somber and a little ill. She sat in one of the chairs across from him, settling into a routine she had become familiar and comfortable with long since their rocky roots. He finally looked at her, almost reminiscent of the hard, confused stare Peter had leveled at her about 15 minutes ago. She felt the same dull terror begin rooting into her stomach. Nothing good could follow the way Broyles was looking at her now.

"I'm struggling with how exactly to say this," he said flatly.

"With all due respect, sir, I'd rather you just tell me whatever it is you have to tell me because I've had all the suspense I need until I retire."

He stared at her a moment longer before looking away, nodding once as if committing to the reality he was about to expose her to. She felt her phone begin vibrating in her pocket, but she ignored it, sensing that any distractions would stall forthrightness from her boss.

"Do you remember when I told you three weeks ago that there had been several breaches in the Department? Including information that could possibly jeopardize you and your team?"

"I do," she nodded curtly.

"Do you remember when I told you that the agents I have working the leaks may have pinpointed a destination for the stolen information?"

"Yes," she said, feeling impatient.

"The group is an underground collective," Broyles said. "From everything we've seen, they exist solely to shop for government and corporate information and then sell it to the highest bidder. It's like a black market for espionage."

Olivia found herself nodding, her brow furrowed as she waited for the point of this conversation to come.

"When we pinpointed the buyers, we started cross-referencing their old contacts with our agents and consultants," he continued, and Olivia's heart seemed to stutter. "We narrowed the list down to a few who work in and for this field office."

"Who was on the list?" she cut in. Her tongue felt like sandpaper scraping against her teeth and palate. She vaguely felt her phone begin vibrating again against her thigh, but continued to focus on Broyles with an unwavering intensity. Broyles' eyes dropped to a list in front of him, despite his impeccable memory, almost as if to remind her that he is not the primary source of whatever impending clusterfuck he was about to drop in her waiting lap.

"SSA Lorna Stevenson from counterterrorism. Junior Agent Blake Allen from IT. And Peter Bishop with Fringe Division."

She stared at him dumbly and asked him to repeat himself.

"Dunham, Peter Bishop is on this list."

"So, you're investigating all the people on this list, and now you're looking at Peter?"

"We already have," Broyles said bleakly, reaching for a single manila folder and spreading its contents across his desk. "Edward Manitelli and Gus Leblanc were on our short list from the black market group. While doing some digging in Peter's past, we found evidence that he owed Manitelli a pretty substantial amount of money from some kind of gambling debt from years ago. Upwards of $50,000."

Broyles positioned the folder's contents in front of Olivia, laying out, one by one, grainy evidence of Peter meeting with two men she had never seen before.

"We received intel that Manitelli and Leblanc were running their business out of a motel just outside of the city, so we set up surveillance crews," Broyles said.

"When were these taken?" she asked, her eyes trained on the last photo. Although the quality was poor, there was no mistaking her partner's wide stance or the stark line that made regular appearance between his eyebrows. Her phone began vibrating again.

"Two days ago," Broyles said.

Olivia stood abruptly, running a tense hand through her hair and fishing her phone from her pocket. She saw not three, but five missed calls. The first two were from Walter and the other three were from Astrid.

"One second, sir," she said, trying to keep her stomach from recycling her lunch. She dialed Astrid's number and was greeted by a breathless and harried voice.

"Olivia," she huffed. "Have you seen Peter?"

"What's going on Astrid?"

"Walter called me about 20 times in the last hour. He said the station wagon is gone and that he can't reach Peter. His phone keeps going to voicemail. I came and picked him up to bring him home, and Peter isn't there. Walter is freaking out, and I don't know how to calm him down."

"Astrid, I have to go," she said, her voice small and a little bewildered.

"Olivia, what is going on?"

"I'll call you back in a few minutes."

She hung up and quickly dialed Peter's number, three times in quick succession, each time hearing the same recorded message.

_Hey, this is Peter. Leave a message and I'll get back to you._

She dropped the phone from her ear, turning to Broyles, who had been watching the whole scene.

"Dunham?"

She returned Broyle's confused expression.

"Sir, I think he might already be gone."


End file.
